A. Components of Urban Gardens

**3**

**Chapter 1**

**Abstract**

recycling

**1. Rationale**

in Fruit Crops

*Pramod Kumar and Simran Saini*

Nutrients for Hydroponic Systems

Hydroponic systems for crop production are nowadays essential to maximize

yields. Sometimes, the benefits of hydroponics have been questioned by the researchers as compared to growing of crops in other soilless culture. The growers raised the crops through hydroponics system get yields more compared to conventional practices as hydroponically grown plants dip their roots directly into nutrient-rich solutions. Therefore, the aim of the current chapter is to provide accurate and updated information about their different nutrients and their composition used hydroponically compared to conventional production mode. This chapter will be divided as the following sections: (1) rationale, (2) nutrient solution technique, and (3) work done on fruit crops. With this chapter, we hope to present an updated

information, comparing hydroponic versus conventional technique.

**Keywords:** soilless culture, hydroponics, conventional production, nutrients,

Hydroponics is the emerging sector of horticulture that deals with growing of plants in a soilless nutrient solution. This term refers to the use of nutrient and water solution for growing plants without soil. Since the ancient time, this technique is being used from thousands of years that traced from the hanging gardens of Babylon and the floating gardens of China. With the decline in arable land, there is a need of alternative to meet the demand of increasing population, and in this regard, hydroponics serves as an additional channel for crop production. In this technique, the crop plant growth is influenced by certain substances in the water. The German botanists, Julius Von Sachs and Wilhelm Knop developed the first standard formula for the nutrient solutions in 1860–61 where the nutrient solutions contained macronutrients the especially nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, magnesium, and calcium varied concentration depending upon crop. Since 100 years back, William Frederick Gericke popularized the idea that plants could be grown in a solution of nutrients and water. He contributed toward hydroponic culture by producing an effective nutrient solution. In the early 1930s, he did an experiment on production of agricultural crops through nutrient culture and termed it as aquaculture. The term so used was dropped due to culturing of aquatic organisms as aquaculture. During 1930s refinement work on hydroponics was expanded toward Europe, Japan, and North America worked England, Africa, Britain, France, Italy, Spain, and Sweden. In 1937, W.A. Setchell introduced the term "hydroponics." The hydroponic nutrient solution includes minerals in the raw
